


Probably A Bad Idea

by angharabbit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 15 Years Post-Hogwarts, Bedsharing, F/M, Fake Relationship, Misapplication of science, Pregnancy, dramione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21854542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharabbit/pseuds/angharabbit
Summary: “Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t fake that level of familiarity without extensive practice.”They stared at each other.“We’re going to fucking fix the fucking Longbottoms,” he said resolutely, emptying his cup without breaking eye contact with her.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 119
Kudos: 422





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The last HP fic I wrote was before some of you were born, and that’s both an amusing and troubling thought.

There were very few things a reformed Death Eater could do to make amends for the suffering caused by the war. When one was a cog, one became both responsible for the colossal acts of the machine, and somewhat helpless to later, as an individual, make reparations on the same scale as the damage.

This idea bothered Draco Malfoy.

In the hazy time his family spent post-Battle of Hogwarts waiting for the hammer to drop, they’d agreed to accept any conditions that kept them together. Their dignity had taken such a bashing under Voldemort that the loss of their manor house, the loss of the bulk of their fortune, and a ban on future professions that involved government service or influence over magical minors, were all conditions received with gratitude. It was never said, but understood, the Malfoy family should, in future, stay as inconspicuous as possible. 

There were enemies old and new to protect themselves from, a new life to build solely on Narcissa’s Black inheritance, futures to map, but that’s not what kept Draco’s quill tapping against his tea cup in frustration.

What could he, Draco Malfoy, personally do to right the wrongs of the Malfoy family?

“Working on your university application?” his mother called from the house, teapot in hand. “Don’t stress it, your father will call old-“

“I’m not going to some prestigious, ancient wizarding college where everyone will know who I am, even if we could afford the tuition. We talked about this.”

He spoke absently, focused on his task.

“Draco,” Narcissa said softly, scanning the parchment over his shoulder. “That’s a dangerous list.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t owl this off to the Ministry?” he responded sarcastically, remembering too late to gentle his tone for his mother. She frowned, but when she swept into the chair opposite him at the patio table of their stylish London townhouse garden, it wasn’t to scold.

“This list,” she said, placing a smooth hand down as if to obscure the words, “is not a weight you bear. Move on.”

“Can Professor Burbage move on? Can Professor Dumbledore move on? Can Professor Snape move on?” he said, the familiar mix of rage and guilt pushing at his breakfast. His mother’s cooking rarely sat well.

“You can’t bring back the dead, Draco,” she warned, make up failing to hide her fatigue. “You can’t bring back Vincent. You can’t undo Ollivander’s or the Lovegood girl’s trauma. You’ve apologized, but you’re not responsible for your aunt’s actions. You can’t unscar the Granger girl, you can’t fix the Longbottoms, you can’t-“

“Wait,” he said, cutting her off sharply. He thought for a moment.

He couldn’t bring back the dead, but the Longbottoms weren’t dead. And where there was life there was hope.

This would take some thought.

XXX

*15 years later*

Hermione Granger set her phone back down on the Salisbury park bench and ate her take away curry chips in a cloud of memories and confusion. She’d read the email several times, she knew what the words meant, but she was no closer to understanding what the hell Draco fucking Malfoy was on about.

That he’d emailed her at all was stunning. That he’d emailed her from a University of Bath faculty address with his real name in the body of the text followed by his auto signature of ‘Prof D. Black’ was perplexing. That he wanted her help on a personal research project was into-another-universe unbelievable.

As had been the goal of the Ministry after the war, she hadn’t heard the name Malfoy in over a decade, except in the context of now-historical events. 

Curiosity did make her wonder what the handsome old bully was up to.

She organized her thoughts.

Method, Granger.

What did she know.

He was a professor at a respected university. That meant he was living in the Muggle world full time, under an assumed name. He had pursued a Muggle education. He was an active researcher. He needed her help on a side project. That suggested his project involved magic. To need her specifically, it likely involved a need for advanced potions and groundbreaking magical healing research. 

To approach her personally, with their past, it had to be blazingly important to him.

Malfoy always had been nipping at her heels in grades, it shouldn’t surprise her that he’d found an academic niche and thrived. A quick google search found several papers authored by “Dr Drake Black” in the fields of psychology and neuroscience.

What was that little ferret up to.

Crumpling the greasy packet, she threw it in the rubbish bin beside the bench and rummaged in her bag for her umbrella. She could feel it vibrating away through the leather, a spell warning of impending rain.

She’d meet with him, of course, damning her insatiable curiosity the whole way.

The walk home did nothing to ease her confusion. It was too short from the cathedral-view park where she’d had her lazy tea to her upstairs redbrick apartment on Castle Street along the narrow sidewalks, avoiding splashing cars and bumping umbrellas with those going opposite. She’d worn the right shoes, at least.

Her bag, containing a Muggle laptop and a notebook, was not a concern, impervious to water, fire, and unwelcome scrutiny. Annoyed by analyzing her notes by hand in the London potions lab where electronics malfunctioned with enthusiasm, she’d taken to haunting her local library to work, saving the need to commute by apparition.

Tidying up at home, Hermione began to realize the mystery would be intolerable. Her phone sat in silent challenge while she put away her wet gear, fed the cat, plugged in the kettle. Long rains, when it grew dark so early, were always the slowest evenings for busy minds left alone to chew.

She knew what Harry would say if he knew she was strongly considering meeting Draco Malfoy for any reason. She certainly knew what Ron, lord love her still-loving ex, would say.

“Meet me at the Giggling Squid, Castle St, Salisbury, 7pm tonight,” she tapped into the phone, wondering, as she hit send, how he got her old gmail address in the first place.

It was perhaps unkind to give Malfoy less than two hours to receive her email, prepare for their meeting, locate the restaurant down the street from her, and apparate to a safe spot nearby in the pouring rain. 

Her guilt didn’t last long as she remembered their early years together.

Deciding the dark jeans and black button down she’d worn to the library was acceptable attire, Hermione concentrated on reading one of Malfoy’s papers online, making occasional notes when something interested her. Her field of research was thoroughly magical methods of healing, but Malfoy’s was as thoroughly Muggle.

Maybe this was what he wanted to talk about, she speculated. She had to admit, the man had turned into a fine scientist.

Too bad he‘d been a Death Eater.

Hermione left the apartment, standing in the arched brick entrance alcove a moment to determine that she had remembered her favourite pen, when a soft crack filled the air.

Summoning the key to her hand, wand up her sleeve if needed, she held the metal object like a knife as someone unexpectedly appeared in the shadows beside her. Obscured by a black trench, black umbrella, unadorned black wool trilby, the unidentified man spoke softly.

“Peace, Granger, it’s just me.”

“Is it a coincidence you chose this spot to apparate?” she hissed, stepping out of the light touch he’d put on her elbow to steady her.

“I found it on google street view about three minutes ago,” he said evenly, rescuing a potted fern she was about to back into, trying to put space between them. “It seemed like a safe enough place when I was in such a pinch for time. Thank you for that, by the way.”

Hermione noted that he sounded more tired and amused than haughty, which she’d thought was a default setting.

“Alright then,” she assessed, trying to sound as calm as he did, “let’s go so you can tell me what this is all about.”

“I should warn you,” he said, matching her fast strides on long legs, “I can only tell you so much in public. If you want to hear me out fully, we’ll have to go somewhere more private.”

“That doesn’t sound concerning at all,” Hermione muttered, watching him step clear across puddles that she had to skirt around. Under the trilby his hair radiated blonde in the street lights, long for a muggle, short for a wizard.

“Giggling. Squid.”

Draco stood under the sign like he hadn’t quite believed the address in the email.

“Alright,” he sighed, “Giggling Squid it is.” He held the door open for her, ignoring Hermione’s skeptical side eye as she passed ahead of him into the warmly scented room. 

Draco scanned a menu for a few minutes while the staff brought Hermione the first course of her usual order. Or that was the goal. It was difficult not to size each other up in the fifteen years that had passed. Draco was lean, hungry in spirit, an alertness to the unseen in his eye Hermione recognized as common among her peers. And handsome, damn him.

Hermione, for lack of a better word, had begun to feel somewhat matronly over the past few years. Rarely willing to come up for air from her research, usually a guaranteed relationship-ender right there, she’d learned to embrace her comfortable clothes, her softening body, the small dusting of grey she found when her curls were parted on the wrong side. 

The assessment Draco gave her during that moment was unforgivingly clinical. Compared to women like his mother, Granger had let herself go, but appeared to be in good health and strong in mind. If there was something romantic about the way damp curls were escaping the knot and creating whispy coils against her neck in the light of the table’s candle, that was none of his concern.

Brown eyes demanded his focus now, guarded, curious, sharp. Hermione bit back opening lines like “so what can the bucktoothed mudblood do for the scion of the great Malfoy dynasty,” swallowing down bitter cleverness for professional interest.

Thank Merlin he’d been prepared before he’d sent that brief-but-multi-hour-to-compose-and-hit-send email. Granger would pull something like this, taking him off his guard. She would always have the high ground and he would always be the supplicant, he’d accepted.

Then Granger slid off her damp jacket, the sleeves of her dress shirt rolled. He hadn’t seen his aunt’s handiwork since that unforgettable day, and it threw him for a turn to see the tattoo she’d had made on top of it, obscuring but not removing what was visible if one knew where to look.

Suddenly she wasn’t a woman he’d had a poor relationship with at school, a rival. No, now she was the woman tortured by his aunt in his home. She was the classmate he thought would be murdered before his eyes to haunt him. He felt the strangling fear of his betrayal, lying to protect Potter and his friends at the cost of his life. The heat of fiendfyre burned up his back, sweat forming under the hairline of his neck. 

How could she ever have agreed to meet with him. 

That arm was on his list of sins.

“I don’t want to rehash the past,” he said carefully, touching the bowl of edamame, selecting one, but not splitting the pod. He spun it between his fingers as he selected words, minuscule sparks forming along its path like fireflies.

“I imagine you don’t,” she confirmed, frowning at his unconscious magic. She rested her fingertips on his with a significant look until it stopped, then hastily drew them away again

“But there’s something I need to bring up first.” He took a deep breath. “My aunt is responsible for the state of the Longbottom family.”

Sitting back from the round bistro table, Hermione hid her surprise with a ill-judged sip of scalding unbrewed tea.

“Yes,” she winced, when it seemed like he needed confirmation that she was with him.

“After a great deal of research, I believe a combination of Muggle and magical healing could improve their psychological states.”

“But-“ she started heatedly. Draco interrupted her, holding a finger up to stop her. The arrogance was more familiar than this cool, disinterested gentleman.

“Hear me out before you call the aurors.”

“Aurors? Have you done something illegal?”

“Yes, several times, but please, listen then judge.”

This wasn’t coming out right. He’d meant to talk about his research, then how it connected to hers, then finally drop in his ultimate goal.

“I stole their files from St Mungo’s and copied them, everything the healers have. With my science, and your magic, I think we can come up with something to rebuild their memories overtop both the original trauma and the layers of obliviate.”

He leaned towards her, his elbows nearly in their entrees. Animation lit his pale face.

“That would involve access to a great deal of persona-“

“I’ve got it,” he said firmly. “I met with old Mrs Longbottom before she died a few years ago, explained my hope. Half my flat is her bottled memories, notes, copies of photo albums, all that.”

“She consented?”

Draco nodded. Hermione frowned.

“Do you have permission from Neville?”

Her dinner partner scoffed, tearing a spring roll in half and dropping it back onto the plate. Steam poured out the ends.

“Did I casually ring up Longbottom and ask if I could muck about with his parents’ brains? I’m sure he’d love that, Granger.”

“It’s necessary,” Hermione stated firmly. “I won’t budge on that. We can work on theory but no one touches a synapse without Neville.”

Draco was about to retort, holding a fork like a pointer, rice noodle sliding off, when he paused.

“You’re in!” he exclaimed, flushing red.

“Of course I’m in,” Hermione hissed, looking at the other patrons and casting a hasty muffliato. “Learn to behave yourself, Malfoy.”

“I think you’ll find that I have,” he said wryly, his enthusiasm at her acceptance overcoming his need to snark.

***

They went over technical details back at her little one bedroom flat, reams of notes between them on the glass coffee table.

“So essentially,” Hermione said, gears turning, “we could use polyjuice to build a body of continuous memories from before and after the Longbottoms were attacked, and place them as a unit over the traumatized memories, and then loop it, so that instead of making them try to forget something so huge, they get this reel as an alternative.”

“Correct, Granger,” Malfoy said, drawing a chemical diagram on the back of list of neurological parameters. “And we incorporate the artificial memories, an altered powerful memory restorative, into a custom brewed calming potion.”

Hermione looked Draco firmly in the eyes.

“We’d have one shot. It would have to be utterly perfect, tested in every way to the best of our abilities. It’s going to take months, years even.”

“I have to do this, Hermione. This has to work. If we commit to this I’ll take my sabbatical, I have it saved up, and make this my only focus.”

It was strange enough to have Draco Malfoy draped across her reading chair, a wheel-shaped almond cookie looped around his finger like a giant ring, tea sloshing out of a Jane Austen quote mug as he gestured, but Hermione didn’t think he’d ever used her name before. She brushed it off as a tired slip up, it was very late.

“We’ll need to know everything about them if we’re going to play this out. Rooms that look like theirs, clothes, hair for the polyjuice, wildly detailed knowledge about their personal lives.”

“I’ve made a good start,” Draco said, sifting through his notes to find a folio of moving wizarding photographs. He showed Hermione the backgrounds, and compared them to a layout of the Longbottom home drawn by Neville’s gran. Pulling out a mobile, he showed Hermione photos of replicated rooms.

“Where is this?” she asked, taking the phone to examine his work more closely. Draco’s level of commitment to this project ran much deeper than she’d guessed many hours ago when they were still a bit snippy back at the restaurant.

“I’ve done what I could in my flat, just their bedroom, really, but my parents are living in Spain at the moment and I have the run of their-“

“I’m not going to your parents’ house, Malfoy,” she said quietly, setting the mobile down with a click and getting up off the couch. She filled the kettle, noting she had to be at work in a few hours and all of this was A Very Bad Idea. Tears threatened as she stared into the red plastic washing up pail in the sink, yesterday’s lunch dishes still soaking. 

“No, Granger, no, that house is gone, I would never ask you to-“

“I’m not going to any house your father-“

“Hold on, don’t decide now.” Draco interrupted, standing with his hands up, the cookie still around his finger, crumbs down the black waistcoat over his grey on grey stripe button down. “I won’t ask you to go somewhere you don’t feel safe, but give me time to build up some trust.”

She turned and examined his face. The delicate features were open, sincere, low key pleading.

“We’ll see,” she said noncommittally. “Take me through the scenarios you had in mind.”

Another list was produced from Draco’s scatter. He let her peruse it while he made the next pot of tea in her compact kitchen. On the fridge were photos of her, Potter, and an assortment of Weasleys at a formal event. Granger looked quite pretty, for Granger that was, laughing with her arms around each boys’ shoulder. Draco flipped the top of a thank you card beside the photo, complex calligraphy spelling out the greeting. Around the magnet he could read it was signed Mr & Mrs Ronald Weasley.

Draco blew out a low whistle. That right there told him everything he needed to know about why Granger and Weasley never made a go of it. Granger would never be someone’s ‘& Mrs Hisname Hisname’. 

“Malfoy, this list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, is it?”

“No,” he said, dropping in a new teabag without removing the old. “I could use some help on that.”

“I’ll add it to the task list, we’ll sit and have a think.”

By the time a drizzly dawn arrived, both scientists were starting to slow down.

“Nettles, Granger,” Draco murmured from where he was melted like a Dali clock over the arm of the chair, white blonde hair nearly touching the hardwood.

“Nettles,” she confirmed sleepily, writing it down on the wrong list.

“Call in sick to work, Granger,” he said.

“Call in sick to work,” she repeated, beginning to write it under nettles. “Wait, what?”

“We’re on a roll. Call in, sleep a little, and let’s get back at it. I will if you will.” His bossy tone annoyed her, but she had that no sleep underwater feeling, and dismissed it.

“I set my own hours on my research,” she corrected. “It’s fine.”

“Kay,” he said, holding his mobile up over his head to type out a quick message to his faculty head. The phone dropped onto his chest, and he left it there, beginning to breath heavily. She threw an afghan over him, and set his phone to charge in her kitchen.

Making it to her bedroom, and climbing into tights, a tank top, and a soft cardigan against the chill, she fell hard into a deep sleep. She dreamt of the pull of metal through her flesh, of firing spells through dust and smoke, praying they hit the right person, of a pale terrified face clinging to Harry’s back through the flames, desperately calling for a fallen friend, of a quiet little hospital room, where a woman and her husband lay side by side, unmoored from their lives.

“You’re keeping me awake, Granger,” snarked a gravelly voice from beside her, somehow both in her ear and far in the distance. Something had shaken her elbow. “Learn some damn control over your own mind.”

A weight fell on the bed beside her, dipping the mattress so she rolled in. 

It was warm there, a hand on her back, an arm under her head, and Hermione slept.

XXX

“Ron?” Hermione said blearily at her front door hours later. “Why are you here?”

“We’ve had this breakfast date planned for weeks,” he said, slightly offended but more amused to finally have one up on his perfectionist friend.

“I forgot,” she admitted.

She rested her aching head on the door a moment before compelling her eyes to open and brain to function properly.

“Are you sick?” he finally asked. “Research hang over?” He noticed the men’s dress shoes beside her wellies on the front mat, the long trench and hat on the stand. “Ah, late night with a mysterious lover? I’ll see myself out but expect the inquisition when Ginny finds out.”

“You’re going to tell her?”

“No, just expect she’ll find out.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Anyone I know?”

“It’s not what it looks like, and I have no desire to start totally inaccurate rumours, so no,” she said, noticing Malfoy’s black wand and suit trousers on the ottoman, and beginning to shut the door before Ron saw them.

“Give Potter my best, Weasel King,” Draco suddenly called from the bedroom. His tone was sleepy, like he wasn’t fully awake. “Come back to bed, Hermione. I’m cold.”

Ron’s face purpled in a manner that would have made Mr Dursley proud.

“Malfoy disappears for fifteen years and somehow turns up in your bed?”

“I’m not sleeping with him,” Hermione groaned. “We just slept, like slept, in the same, there was was science involved, look, there’s research notes everywh- okay just get out, Ronald.”

Hermione pushed the door closed on his face and leaned back against it.

“Are you still twelve years old, Malfoy?” she raged. “There was absolutely no need, no need at all, to let Ron know you were in my bed, which is all beyond the point of why are you in my bed?”

“You’ve got lousy protections around your mind, and you were babbling into my dreams all night. It was the only way to keep your nightmares out of my head.”

“Fair on that point,” she said after a moment, stewing. “So now more sleep or coffee, while I wait for the shitstorm I’m going to get?”

“Coffee,” he said, emerging from her bedroom in his undershirt and underpants, annoyingly bright eyed. 

“So it’s a set chunk of time we’re trying to portray, a snapshot of what could have happened that day the Death Eaters tortured them, and those first few weeks after, and just overlay it with new memories to reference. We need to make a list of all the regular sorts of things people do, then what they would do, then we can break it down further and blend into it context like events covered in the Daily Prophet and quidditch scores.”

Hermione held up her hand.

“Before you get too carried away, you’re missing something critical.”

“Oh,” he challenged, hands on hips.

“Trousers.”

Draco looked down and snorted.

“Sure,” he said, snagging his clothes from the furniture and stepping into the legs. “Does that means you’re going to go dress as well, or is wandering around like that home turf privilege?”

Hermione looked down and squeaked. Her tank top had revealed the full colour, shape, and texture of her chilly nipples where the cardigan hung loose at the sides. Wrapping it tightly around herself she nodded.

“Obviously I’ll go change.”

Coffee was brewing when Hermione was decent, Malfoy looking oddly domestic in the tiny kitchen making eggs and toast. His wand was absently waving at the eggs, scrambling them while he read her newspaper.

A letter sat on a plate that had been laid out for her at the table.

“That just arrived too. Galleon says your ex has loose lips and already spilled the beans to his sister.”

“There are no ‘beans’ to spill, except thanks to you they’ll all think so,” she said, breaking Ginny’s seal. “Why announce your return to the wizarding world like that after laying low so long?”

“I haven’t been in hiding,” he said sharply, “I’ve been getting on with life, and that doesn’t include daily hostility from people who still consider me a war criminal. Wanting to be left alone isn’t the same as hiding.”

Scraping the eggs onto their plates from the pan, Draco eyed the back of the letter Hermione was rolling her eyes at.

“What did she say?”

She flipped the sheet around so he could see the three hastily scrawled words - “How was it?”

A circa fifth year grin blasted onto Draco’s face.

“What are you going to tell her?”

“Non-existent, of course! This isn’t some sort of fake dating trope in a crappy romance novel, so obviously I’ll tell her the truth.”

“Fair, but less fun.”

Reaching for her research bag on the floor, Hermione pulled out a quill and wrote a short reply under Ginny’s query - “He makes good scrambled eggs.”

They separately started work on compiling comprehensive lists of routine daily tasks to compare while they ate in professional silence, but it was an exhaustive task to establish the right level of detail, and then cross reference with the Longbottom’s life and place in time.

“I can’t think of anything else,” Draco said, examining the parchments yet again with a cold slice of delivery pizza in hand. It had turned into lunch, dinner, and midnight snack. “What are you doing, Granger?”

She had pulled out her wand and fired it at a cupboard over her fridge. Things inside rattled. The door finally burst open to reveal an open bottle of liquor with a peeling label and a sprinkling of dust.

“We’re going to fucking fix the fucking Longbottoms,” she said resolutely.

“What’s this about,” he asked, examining the set features, the new pallor she was sporting. 

“Malfoy, we missed something that could be a deal breaker,” she said, catching the bottle and pouring liberally into the bottom of her empty tea mug. “The Longbottoms were married.”

“So,” he said slowly, watching her drink.

“What do young married couples like to do of an evening?”

Draco stared at her, feeling foolish for not catching on. 

“They have sex, Malfoy,” she said bluntly, handing him the bottle.

He held the smooth glass, thinking.

Oh.

OH.

“It’s only a period of a few weeks. Maybe they didn’t do it that often.”

Flipping through the photo album, Hermione stopped and showed him a picture. In the background,Frank had his arms around Alice, pulling her in close for a kiss under the mistletoe with Neville in front of the Christmas tree, clearly the star of the photo. Draco watched them a moment, their expressions. He scanned a few more photos, seeing some in a new light.

“God, they probably did it like rabbits,” he said, pouring himself a mug of whatever the brown stuff was.

“I know we said it had to be the same two pilots, us, for everything to do with creating false memories, but maybe for this specifically we could ask an established couple to help?”

It was tempting.

“Who did you have in mind?”

“Maybe Harry and G-“

“Potter has enough going in his head without adding Frank Longbottom,” Draco dismissed.

“Ron a-“

“Nope, not trusting a teaspoon to a Weasley let along my life’s work.”

“It’ll need to be married people sex, people who have kissed thousands of times, and had sex hundreds of times. They sleep next to each other every night and touch constantly without thinking of it. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t fake that level of familiarity without extensive practice.”

They stared at each other.

“We’re going to fucking fix the fucking Longbottoms,” he said resolutely, emptying his cup without breaking eye contact with her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point of interest: the phrase “for science” is used so many times in this story that I almost made it the title

“New list,” Draco proposed. His handwriting, despite being drunk, was flawless. Not that drunk Hermione especially appreciated such things, of course. His impeccable serifs hardly concerned her.

An empty bottle, a lot of profanity, and a fresh pizza later, the researchers sat on the floor of Hermione’s living room. 

“What’s this list now?” 

They’d just completed an index of sex acts and frequency a married couple with a small child, who had just come safely through a deadly war, could reasonably be expected to partake in. It had taxed their vocabulary and several rounds of awkward charades had been necessary.

“Same list of acts, but what you personally have done, liked, didn’t like, absolutely nots and yes pleases, how recently, and with how many different partners.”

“Good lord, you’re not asking much, are you? You’re doing this too, right?”

“Yup,” he burped, a hand to his fine waistcoat.

Hermione was surprised that Draco was finished before her.

“Done,” she said second, putting down her pencil.

“Trade,” he commanded, holding out his sheet. Pulling hers back towards her chest, Hermione hesitated on handing over her entire sexual history to her once-bully.

“There’s no way yours will be worse than mine, Granger,” he admitted, snatching her sheet and tossing his in return. He scanned the page. “Alright, it’s a little worse. I’ll keep Weasley’s complete lack of imagination secret if you keep Parkinson’s.”

“That’s it?”

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“You expected more?”

“Aren’t you some hotshot science professor at a Muggle university? And you’re living the life of a monk?”

“This project is my everything, Granger,” he said seriously. He looked over at her and flashed her a sly grin. “And you’re one to talk.”

“Let’s not pretend you’re surprised by my results.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? You’ve been neglected,” he said with mock offense. “If circumstances had been different back at Hogwarts I could think of worse things than getting caught with you in the astronomy tower after curfew.”

He looked up a silent moment later to find Hermione staring at him in disbelief.

“I’m serious.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I can be both.”

“If circumstances had been different, I’d probably have agreed,” she said quietly.

“Alright,” Draco said briskly, pulling out yet another sheet of parchment. “Childhood crushes acknowledged. Now, moving forward with ground rules.”

“Wait,” she sputtered, “I never said I had a crush-“

“Ground rules,” he interrupted, “all official encounters must be undertaken with zero percent blood alcohol level.”

“Agreed. Safe word to abort encounters must be reviewed before all sessions.”

“Agreed.” He thought a moment. “Safe word is Neville. We’ll be able to able to say things like ‘I think I hear Neville waking’ without breaking character.”

“Clever. Birth control spells must be applied in a timely fashion in addition to the muggle birth control I use.”

“Absolutely, the Malfoy line dies with me. My parents are already furious I won’t marry some appropriate pureblood and instantly spawn an heir.”

“I could see how that’d also contribute to a lack of interest in dating.”

“During sexual encounters we need to refer to each other exclusively as Frank and Alice.”

“I don’t want to have sex with Neville’s father,” she groaned, stuffing her face in a cushion.

“But you want to fix him,” he reminded her.

“But I want to fix him,” she sighed.

“Let’s save the names until we’re more comfortable?”

“Please,” she accepted gratefully.

“I propose we continue to sleep, just sleep, in the same bed from now on.”

“Well, that we’ve already started.”

“I should ask, do you have anyone you’re seeing? I don’t want this to actually damage your relationships if people found out or got the wrong idea.”

“Like this morning?”

“Whoops.” His wicked grin spoke volumes about how truly sorry he really felt.

“No, there’s no one waiting in the wings. You?”

“Nope, just science, and she’s a permissive mistress.”

“This would be less of a big deal if we’d both had more partners. As it is, it’s going to be difficult to avoid feeling…”

“Intimate?” Draco suggested.

“Intimate,” she agreed. “What if we didn’t have our practice sessions at either of our homes to start. Let’s rent a generic hotel room, not think of any of the water under this bridge,” she waved between them, “and just spend the night getting the most awkward bits done like a teenage one night stand.”

“Like when you and Viktor Krum completed items-“

“Let’s not dwell.”

“Let’s,” he smirked.

“When do we start?”

They stared at each other, taking in features of the other that were about to become shared, mouths and hands, waists and hips. 

“Tomorrow night,” they agreed together, grimly.

  
  


XXX

  
  


“For science,” Draco said, holding up a glass of pumpkin juice to clink.

“For science,” Hermione echoed, her ginger ale spilling slightly upon impact. She forced herself to look at his face, to examine his eyes.

Hermione was mentally reviewing Draco’s neatly scripted writing now, standing before him at the random Reading inn room he’d booked for the occasion. She’d asked why Reading, and he’d shrugged, why not, neither had a connection there.

“So, let’s take a minute and map this out,” Draco said quietly, sitting on the bed with his back to her, taking off his wristwatch. The ends of his hair were still damp from a shower. “What position do you want to try first, once we’ve done some foreplay? What are you most comfortable with?” 

Hermione pretended to read the back of the self-heating lube bottle. She’d already applied a blob in the bathroom, and it was warming rapidly on the bare skin under her knee-length wool skirt. Worst case, even if Draco was a bad lay, she had a leg up with the familiar jelly.

“I guess normal, regular. Whatever you call it.”

“Guy on top, face to face?”

“Sure, yeah.” That was all she and Ron had ever done anyway. “So start with kissing, undressing, touching?”

“I can finger you to make sure you’re ready as well,” he said clinically, looking back over his shoulder at Hermione’s hair. She started loosening the braided knot she wore, the tension of her curls keeping the long plait half-formed as it fell down her back. The back of her neck, under the kiss curls, was pink.

“Dark?” Hermione asked, reaching for the lamp over the bed. Draco reached out and caught her fingers.

“Lamp on. I want to be able to see your face to make sure you’re okay,” he said softly.

“Alright,” she hesitated. “If you need some extra, um, encouragement then, would you prefer I use my hands or mouth?”

Something small in Malfoy’s brain felt like it had just combusted at the idea know-it-all-and-friend-of-Potter-golden-girl Hermione Granger had actually just offered to...

“Mouth,” he said, with a carefully executed casual shrug. Come for the science, stay for the fun.

She pulled off her cardigan, her eyes travelling to her bare forearm.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, Granger,” Draco had said roughly, near the end of their pizza, alcohol and planning the previous night. 

Frowning, she’d watched him fumbling to unbutton the cuff of his slate coloured dress shirt, wondering if he’d intended to strip off his clothes and give her an early show before bed.

The Dark Mark was thrust into her face, the magical tattoo faded but still highly visible against skin so pale it clearly never saw the light of day.

“There, there it is. Yes, I took the Dark Mark and did evil things as a teen. There’s also a big scar on my chest from Potter. Now you won’t have to be wondering or looking for it while we’re doing pretend sexy.”

Draco’s face has been a mix of aggressive and vulnerable. Hermione hadn’t been clear what he wanted in exchange.

“I see it. What is it you want me to show you,” she had asked cautiously.

“Your arm, Granger. You remember, my house? My aunt? A big knife?” It was the closest he had sounded to his old mocking self. Or maybe just too drunk, she she hadn’t been sure. Either way she could almost see his heart in his throat, asking to see.

“Oh,” she had whispered. “Oh, the tattoo covers it”

“Please,” he said softly, “I don’t want to see whatever’s really there for the first time in bed.”

She unbuttoned her own cuff, feeling his eyes burning on her fingers as he examined her colourful skin for the hidden word mudblood. 

He blew out a hard breath. Sprays of tattooed dittany flowers, pinks and whites and soft purples, covered what the essence had not been able to heal.

“May I?” He had shifted closer, holding his lit wand over her skin, brushing it with his fingertips. Hermione jumped at his touch, a spark passing between them.

Now, in their little room in Reading, a mix of faux Tudor and 1990’s, he glanced once again at her floral arm as if looking for reassurance. It was lovely. She had made it lovely.

The scientists sat on either side of the bed, their backs to each other, making a meal out of taking off their shoes.

“Have you already performed the spell to prevent pr-“

“Yes,” Hermione assured, “it’s done.”

“Good, wouldn’t want-“, a bitter edge to his tone softened as he changed the subject. “Hermione,” he started awkwardly, “it has been quite some time. There’s a good chance I’ll disappoint you.”

She smiled to the wall. Oh the things she’d never expected to hear Draco Malfoy say.

“We’re here to practice, after all,” she said, standing up and facing the blonde man across the wash-faded quilt. Taking a deep breath, she unfastened the buttons of her shirt. “We’ll keep experimenting until we have the results we want.”

“For science,” he whispered, still sitting, half-turned, watching the first glimpses of her sternum and bra appear. He was praying to Merlin for if not longevity, at least a quick refractory period until he built up some fortitude. Maybe he should have taken some sort of potion.

“Should we try to kiss now?” Hermione asked, sinking one knee and then the other into the bed, her feet dangling off the edge. 

Her shirt hung open.

Draco nodded slowly, unable to look away from the softly curved expanse of her waist and breasts, broken by a lacy chocolate brown bra. Fingers clumsy, he struggled with his shirt buttons until Hermione crossed the bed to help. 

“I’ve got you, Draco,” she said reassuringly, “I’ll take care of you.” He felt fresh air rush through his thin cotton undershirt as she worked, helping him shrug out of the whole garment. Her hands were steady, going back to smooth over the newly exposed skin of his shoulders and neck like she was calming a restless animal.

Sliding a hand up the side of his throat to his jaw, resting her thumb along his cheek bone, she whispered “close your eyes.” He obeyed, feeling her near. 

Granger was going to kiss him. 

There’d been a few errant times before all this that he had to admit he’d thought about Granger kissing him. After she punched him in the face. When she’d called him a twitchy little ferret. While she’d duelled Death Eaters in her nightdress in the astronomy tower. It had been a strange and fleeting desire, usually deeply buried in moments of conflict.

This was happening now, though. Not the witch of his fantasies, but the witch of so many confusing dreams. Her mouth on his was warm, and increasingly confident when he didn’t pull away.

“You remember the safe word?” she asked breathily, feeling his hands fall onto her hips and slide up under the open shirt.

“Neville,” he confirmed, chasing her mouth, “but don’t stop.” Draco tugged the shirt off Hermione’s shoulders, throwing it on the floor. 

Her adult body was rounded, plush, and she was comfortable in it. His fingers sank slightly into the flesh of her torso, warm and silky, hiding from the eye the strength of the muscle underneath, flexing as she moved. She was still the witch who could break his nose with a single swing, and that sent a shiver of anticipation through him.

“Are you okay,” she asked at the movement, pulling back a little to examine his face. He was flushed red right to the slightly receded line of his dishevelled white-blonde hair, his mouth still open.

“I didn’t expect,” he started, shaking his head, breaking off his sentence to bury his face in her neck and suck the skin between his teeth. Granger in his mouth. Granger in his hands. Granger in his bed. A new burning sensation in his head told him to consume her, to take Granger and incinerate her in his want. The intensity of his desire scared him, but Hermione was stronger than him in every way, he knew. Maybe Granger was consuming him.

“I know,” she panted in response to his unfinished assessment, her rational brain baffled that she could have been so inflamed by a few minutes of kissing her childhood bully. “I didn’t think I’d like it so much.”

Joining her on the bed on his knees, Draco finally wrapped both arms around her in an embrace, pulling her flush to his body. She could feel how hard he was through his trousers, rutting against her leg as his hands sank into her hair, clawing up the fabric of the back of her skirt to splay his fingers into her round bare- dear lord, he was done for.

At the touch of the bare skin beneath his palm, one finger accidentally skimming the hot slick that coated her labia, Draco finished in his pants.

“Keep going,” he demanded, red in the face, taking off his undershirt, and unbuckling his belt. Hermione didn’t need encouragement, she kissed him hard.

Shuffling around awkwardly between magnetic kisses, Draco managed to strip off everything on his body. Unabashed in his unforgivingly lean nudity, his focus was on his partner.

“You know I expected it to be quick, Granger,” he said hoarsely, both hands sliding along where she knelt with her splayed thighs, to disappear under the skirt, “but I thought I’d at least make it inside you first.”

Trying and failing to get a look at what she would be dealing with, Hermione threw her head back, arching, as Draco fed one, then two, then when there was still no resistance, three fingers into her.

“There,” he murmured, keeping her body pressed to his with his free hand splayed across her back, her head tucked into his shoulder, “that’s good, Granger.”

The hint of praise made her melt around him, her hips urging him to find a rhythm for his aimless ministrations. She could feel the flex of the muscles on the arm trapped between them as he twisted and plunged his fingers. 

Even in his unpracticed chaos, Hermione felt an orgasm building. It had been so long, and the intensity in the room was unprecedented in her sexual experiences, that the tension crackled through her until it struck. 

“That’s right, Granger,” Draco encouraged, pleased he wasn’t the only cheap date. He felt her body tense and waiver, a low keen trapped in her throat.

It was a start, Hermione told herself, panting, feeling his fingers still deep inside her. 

Draco Malfoy’s fingers were deep inside her. 

Their chemistry was good, she thought, the experiment would pay off for the project. It was satisfying.

“I still need more time,” Draco said, guiding his partner down until her head was on the pillow. He unfastened her bra, and straddling her hips, stared at her breasts long enough to make Hermione self-conscious.

“Did you have these at school?” He finally asked.

“It’s all a blur,” she shrugged, making them shift in a way that hypnotized Draco’s silver eyes.

“For science,” he repeated dreamily, trailing a hand down her sternum so that he could stroke the inner curves of both breasts at the same time. He remembered that she didn’t like to have them sucked, according to her answer sheet, but licking was still on the table. He bent over and traced the bottom slope with his tongue.

Glorious.

If she tasted that good there, academic curiosity begged further exploration.

“Mind if I go off script,” he said in a low voice, pulling her skirt up to reveal her shiny, damp curls. 

He’d never done it before, but if Hermione was willing, he’d learn.

She nodded, watching strands of his hair fall across and tickle her skin.

Going slow until he found a comfortable position, Draco tormented Hermione with a methodical unskilled exploration. She threaded her fingers through his hair. It was such a distinctive colour, so prominent in her school memories, now bobbing between her thighs. Not breaking off from his work, he raised his eyes, catching hers along the length of her body, silver and brown. 

She was close. He was ready.

Shimmying back up Hermione’s body, Draco fastened his slick mouth to her neck and licked and sucked. Spreading her legs apart further, Hermione welcomed the weight of his body on her hips. 

Draco slid into her without much fanfare. It felt right, it felt natural, and her body stretched to accommodate his size with grace. 

“You okay, Granger,” he said, voice muffled by his mouthful of her trapezoid. He’d left her so close that it only took a few emphatic thrusts before she’d locked her ankles around his hips, weightless with orgasm. He carried on through, pulled into her orgasm after only a few more tight thrusts. She felt him spill inside her as his muscles tensed, heard a strained, whispered:

“Hermione.”

“Well, bright side, if you choose to start seeing anyone you’ll be in fine shape in bed,” Hermione said contentedly not long after, fingers deeply stroking through his hair. His head rested lazily between her breasts, his eyes closed.

“I’m not going to be seeing anyone,” he scoffed.

“Hm?” she asked, sleepy but listening.

“The only witches who’d have me are those trying to the climb the darkest branch of the pureblood family tree.”

“Still too good for Muggles?”

“Where my choice is live a lie the rest of my life, or drop the bomb on them that I’m an exiled war criminal from a family of murderers and madmen?”

“Self-imposed exile,” she corrected. “And can I tell you a secret, Malfoy?” Her fingers were slowing as she drifted off. “You don’t have to marry every woman you sleep with. Sometimes a witch just needs a little magic in the bedroom.”

“Sounds messy,” he complained, nuzzling further into the breast of his research partner. “Anyway, this will be taking all my energy for the near future.”

“Science,” she whispered, succumbing.

“For science,” he agreed, dropping a kiss onto her bare skin before joining her.

XXX

“The _mimosa pudica_ should be in a completely untouched state-“

“It should be in a touched-out state,” Hermione countered, leaning toward the blonde man across the Muggle pub table. “Activating it’s memory properties.”

“Filling it’s memory properties,” Malfoy said heatedly, “making it useless to us.” He dipped two tortilla chips in the complimentary salsa and handed one to her, angry but attentive. Hermione’s fingers lingered against his a touch too long.

Neville sipped his lager at the bar, watching the strange pair with building suspicion.

When he’d arrived to meet Hermione at their appointed time fifteen minutes earlier, the sight of Draco Malfoy had stopped him in his tracks. They were so absorbed in each other though, they hadn’t noticed him yet, giving him time to mentally regroup.

“You can activate it’s memory properties without touching it,” Neville finally interrupted, watching Malfoy’s hand retract from her knee under the table. “Hello, Hermione.”

Springing up for a hug and a peck on the cheek, Hermione motioned for Malfoy to steal a chair from another table so Longbottom could join them.

“So is that the research discussion you meant in your owl? You need to consult a herbologist?”

Hermione and Malfoy exchanged a significant look.

“Not exactly,” she responded slowly, “though come to think of it, it could resolve some conflicts.”

“What’s going on here,” Neville asked, nodding his head to Malfoy without acknowledging directly.

“Odd as it will sound, Malfoy is currently my research partner on a project that concerns your family.”

“I thought you’d vanished or something,” he addressed to the spectre from his past. “I was pretty okay with the idea.”

“I imagine,” Draco said dryly, refilling his glass with wine and topping up Granger’s.

“It’s a long story and a lot of complex science, but we may have a way to help your parents,” she explained, taking a long drink.

Leaning back, Neville placed his pint on the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’ve got time for a long story, and you’ll need to explain every single part of the complex science, before you think for a moment I’m going to let a former Death Eater play with my parents’ brains.”

Draco gestured in a huffy “see?” gesture to Hermione.

“That’s not a no,” she pointed out. “Absolutely, Neville, we’ll take you through everything. Finish your drink, I’ll take you to my flat where we’re doing most of the work.”

“I thought the reason we settled on meeting Longbottom at a Muggle pub was so that he can’t hex me?”

“Neville is not going to hex you,” Hermione said wearily, like she’d repeated more times than she cared to count.

“Depends, Malfoy,” Neville said in a dangerous tone, “what have you done?”

Three hours and a round of headache potions later, they’d come to a sort of agreement. Neville followed Hermione into her kitchen, carrying empty mugs.

“If you don’t mind me asking, you seem pretty cosy with Malfoy.”

“It’s necessary for the project,” she shrugged.

He frowned, thinking of Malfoy’s farewell. The blonde man had put on his coat and hat and walked out into the flat stairwell, but Neville was pretty certain he heard the distinctive sound of apparition behind the closed door of Hermione’s bedroom seconds later.

“Alright, you can go ahead with the project on two conditions,” he said.

Hermione brightened, summoning a quill and parchment.

“One, I review everything you do, especially the potions ingredients.”

“Excellent,” she said, making a note. “Your suggestion about the night casting was already genius. The second?”

“I reserve the right to stop the experiment at any time, especially if I feel like anyone is in danger.”

“We’d never let your parents come to harm-“

“That’s you too, Hermione,” Neville said firmly, his grasp on her arm gentle. “If I feel like you’re in too deep with Malfoy, or putting yourself at risk, I’ll cancel all this to protect you.”

Hermione nodded, thinking of the man warming her bed for her even as they spoke. 

“It’s just science,” she dismissed, “not the Dark Arts.”

“It’s Draco Malfoy,” he said, lowering his voice to make sure the person he suspected was still nearby couldn’t hear him. “It’s Lucius Malfoy’s son, raised on Dark Arts and blood purity. It’s a man with Voldemort’s mark burned into his skin by his choice. It’s not as simple as you think,” he finished emphatically, forcing her to look him in the eye with a finger under her chin. “I won’t risk your life or safety to get back something I never had.”

Hermione drifted to bed later, the shape of Draco on the pillow next to hers familiar already.

“Don’t move the cat, ‘Mione,” he murmured. “She’s snuggly.”

“Yes, a terrible threat,” she told herself, amused, climbing in next to him.


	3. Chapter 3

The creep happened so slowly that it wasn’t until Hermione stood hand to mouth, staring at the contents of her biscuit jar in confusion, that she really noticed it. Where she’d been about to dump in a packet of chocolate digestives was already piled with almond windmills. 

There was plenty of room. She tipped the jar to one side, and filled in the gap with her tea biscuits.

After that she saw Draco everywhere in her flat. His toothbrush beside the bathroom sink, his good shoes under the bed, his clothes hanging in the half of her closet reserved for Christmas gifts, the odd way he pulled the curtains in the morning so the light hit her plants better.

Some mornings when she awoke, the cat would be fed, breakfast and coffee would be ready, and she’d sit down at the table and stare at the man hidden behind the Daily Prophet.

“Cannons were crushed again last night of course,” he’d greet her around a mouthful of toast. “Kitchen laundry is away, but I’ve left your clothes folded in the basket, I know you’re particular about how they go in your drawers.”

It was a tough decision to say whether these were the strangest mornings, or the ones when they woke in a sweaty tangle of fear, bodies pressed together. Shared nightmares twisted their sleep together, drawing them in for comfort. Hermione had no experience with keeping her thoughts guarded around an occlumens, and Draco’s defences couldn’t have been lower, her head tucked under his while they slept.

Those mornings they’d pretend to still be asleep, holding each other close, until someone had to get up to pee.

“Are you okay,” she’d ask quietly, watching him select a pair of black socks from his drawer. His back was long, pale, curse-scared.

“I should ask you that. You experienced it, all I did was relive it.”

“That’s not always true.”

He’d make a dismissive noise, pulling on the winners. Draco didn’t like to talk about his bully years, as he called them, or his time as a Death Eater. Hermione suspected it made him uncomfortable that she had seen him so decisively at his worst and still thought he deserved any form of comfort.

“I have to go into Diagon Alley this afternoon. Make me a list of books you’d like and I’ll pick them up.”

“Thanks, I will. Curry for dinner?”

He swooped down to give her a peck on the cheek.

“I’ll pick it up on my way home, you’ve got that meeting with your supervisor,” he reminded her.

If felt like something was missing in those moments, like this was the only time she wanted to hear or give words of affection that never felt appropriate. Respect was the comfort they gave each other, kindness the secret language. 

The quiet hours slipped away as they worked. Notebooks filled with neatly organized scripts, settings, props, with chemical calculations and potions recipes, moon charts and psychological analyses. Rarely was Draco out of physical reach, let alone out of sight, and their days and nights blurred. 

Their arguments usually ended in the bedroom whether it was noon or midnight, and they’d work out the chemical formulas after. Draco took to tracing the flowers on Hermione’s arm, wondering if he dared tattoo over his faded Dark Mark. 

In those moments, when Hermione thought about when this was all over, it took her breath away. Her chest would hurt, imagining her apartment half empty, her days alone, the absolute loneliness of her nights. Draco had filled more than just half her space, half her time, he was filling half her thoughts. His presence in her life had become effortless.

Hermione put it down to luck they’d become so compatible after their volatile early years, both matured, both rational and methodical adults, both with enough pent up sexual energy for a project requiring this kind of intimate dedication.

Hermione would glance over the top of her laptop to find Draco’s eyes dark with lust across the room. This was usually her only warning before she’d find him on his knees between her legs, dragging her thighs to the edge of the comfy chair, ready to devour her.

“For science, Granger,” he’d murmur, peeling down her tights, “only one way to make it seem like I’ve done it hundreds of times before.”

Or

“Hey Malfoy,” Hermione would murmur, distracting him from his calculations, “how about a quick one while the tea brews.”

He’d find her bent over the little dining table in an uncharacteristically short skirt, sans undergarments, slick enough for him to plunge right in, fulfilling a number of their Hogwarts library fantasies.

“We wasted so much time at school fighting when we could have been fucking,” she said one afternoon, sprawled on the floor at the foot of a now-half empty bookshelf. Draco pulled his old UKCAT prep book out from under her shoulder so she could rest more comfortably, and rescued her “One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi” from a freshly watered plant.

“As if you’d have taken a night off studying to get shagged in the stacks,” he said, pulling her into his lap and leaning back against the shelves. “And I had to study all the time to try to catch up to you.”

Ginny had dropped in unannounced one late morning only to hear Draco’s pleas gasping out from the half-closed bedroom door. 

“How else will you learn stamina,” Hermione had asked sternly, “if I let you finish so soon without earning it, Mr Malfoy?”

“Yes, Professor Granger,” he’d groaned, the sound of the headboard against the plaster violent. A scatter of Malfoy’s old uniform pieces led to the bedroom door. The Slytherin tie was missing.

A horrified giggle bubbled out of Ginny, covered by Hermione’s escalating cries. She apparated away, holding the details firmly in her memory for next time Ron got on her nerves. Her brother hadn’t recovered from merely knowing Malfoy had been in Hermione’s bedroom, let alone concrete proof they were having a sexual relationship.

It hadn’t taken more than a moment for Draco’s sharp-eyed parents to notice something was up when he arrived for their monthly family dinner.

“Rope burns around your wrists, bite marks on the back of your neck, at least ten extra pounds- why Draco, you have a girlfriend,” his mother assessed smoothly as she kissed both his cheeks in greeting. His father folded down the Evening Prophet to look him over in the firelight of the stylish little Parisian parlour.

“Hm, about time.” He shook his head. “You’re not getting any younger. That receding hairline is a Black family trait, you know, hopefully one you won’t pass down to my hei-” 

“No girlfriend,” Draco said to his mother, offering her a bouquet of crackling ice roses, “and no heirs,” he said firmly to his father. Narcissa pulled a long curly hair off his black cable knit and silently raised an eyebrow.

“Coworker.”

“You’re on sabbatical,” his father corrected from behind the paper.

“Shall I?” his mother teased, reaching for her wand in the slim pocket of her silk cocktail dress. “One spell could tell me who it belongs to.”

“It belongs to me.”

“The hair?”

“The secret,” he said dryly. He reached out and touched the bottom of the dangling strand with his finger tip. It sparked, fire running up the curl, turning it to ash.

“Is she worthy of the Malfoy name?” Lucius asked arrogantly, finally putting down the paper.

“Don’t you remember the speech you gave me at my thirtieth birthday? You were fairly intoxicated, so let me remind you, father.”

Lucius groaned and picked up a cut crystal tumbler of fire whiskey while Draco gently covered his mother’s ears.

“It went something along the lines of ‘for Merlin’s sake, Draco, I don’t even care anymore, fuck a Weasley for all I mind, just find a woman who will tolerate you, and keep your cock in ‘er until I have a grandson.”

“Lucius!” Narcissa said indignantly, swatting Draco’s hands away from her head. “Though really, Draco, we just want you to be happy.”

“I don’t,” Lucius grunted, getting up to refill his glass. “Disrespectful little brat.”

Hermione had promised him they’d knock something special off the list tonight to soothe the sting of seeing his nagging parents, and Draco held that thought through five courses. 

“My mother said I’d put on weight,” he said later in way of a greeting, apparating directly onto the front door mat so he didn’t drip rainwater onto floors he’d scurgified just that morning. “Must be you reminding me to eat every four hours,” he teased, not stopping at removing his wet outerwear, but continuing to strip his soggy-legged trousers. “They said to keep up whatever I’m doing, and since what I’m doing is you, how would you feel about getting thoroughly fucked against the-“

“Dear lord, Malfoy, save it.”

Draco had finally noticed Neville sitting across from Hermione, a pot of tea and a heavy roll of parchment between them. Hermione had her face buried in her hands, the visible skin scarlet. Neville stood, pulling on the jacket from the back of his chair. 

He passed Draco with a scornful look at his dangling pants and said calmly, “Hermione, do you remember what to look for to mark that mandrakes are ready for stewing?”

The door clicked ominously behind him.

The scientists stared at each other.

“I’ve moved into your pot, Granger,” Draco realized.

Neville was right. It was time to become Alice and Frank.

*** 

Take the potion,” was all the text said.

Hermione had been waiting for this. The tea mug beside Draco’s modified kitchen sink had her polyjuice, and she knocked it back. She hid her mobile in the breadbox.

She smoothed down the witchy, overlarge house dress made up like one of Alice’s, before waves of unpleasant dizziness sent her hands to the counter rim while she grew and changed shape. 

Once it settled, Hermione cast the spell that would glamour her memory to appear to be Alice’s.

The front door clicked.

She started mixing oats and flour into a bowl of brown sugary butter, humming a song the top of the wizarding wireless charts at the right time. The glisten of gold on her ring finger kept catching the light. She wasn’t used to wearing a ring and wished she’d thought to practice after Draco threw it to her last night.

“Is the baby asleep?” an unfamiliar voice murmured in her ear, large hands sliding over her hips. New lips rained slow kisses down her neck. He was careful not to say Neville, their safe word to pull the plug.

“Mm-hm,” was all she could manage. During their uncomfortable first trial session in Draco’s made over bed, unrecorded exploration, they’d discovered the spot on Alice Longbottom’s neck Draco was now exploiting. 

“You’re making apple crisp,” he said, plucking a seasoned chunk of apple from the back dish and eating it. His erection pressed into a cheek of her bottom, pinning her to the counter. He resumed his attentions to her neck. “You’re so beautiful, Lys.”

“Had a good day, did you?” she said breathily, feeling his hands moving to her breasts. Hermione unfastened the top buttons so he could sneak a hand inside her dress.

“Caught two Death Eaters on the run, big spell fight. Probably be in the Prophet tomorrow.”

“Are you hurt?” Hermione asked, trying bend around to see Frank’s face. Draco stroked her in his familiar way, helping her relax.

“Completely fine, Mad-Eye took the worst of it, as usual. More importantly, how are you doing right now,” he asked pointedly, “open to suggestions, darling?”

***

“So what’s next,” Hermione asked, switching spots in their now-traditional post-Longbottom shower.

“Tomorrow is an easy day, long night,” Draco said thoughtfully, recalling the colour-coded schedule. He tipped his head under the spray and closed his eyes, rinsing the unwelcome though not unpleasant taste of Alice from his mouth.

For two weeks they’d lived off and on as the happily-married tragic couple, sleeping in each other’s arms, playing their parts over breakfasts and dinners, cooing over a Crookshanks glamoured into infancy. Psychologically it had been a slog, a tightrope of staying in character without thinking about being in character.

“Reviewing the recorded memories, editting and arranging them in order, and then recording patches to smooth the transitions, right? Otherwise we’re done with being the Longbottoms?”

“Yes,” Draco agreed, wondering if he should address the elephant in the room.

Science no longer required them to be intimate.

“Do you want to come for the spell casting?” Hermione asked, holding the bar of soap over her shoulder. He took it from her and washed her back, the top of her ass, her neck, before sliding the soap around to her stomach and dropping it into her waiting palm.

“Yes, I think you’ll probably need an extra pair of hands.”

“True.”

“And should be a good show.”

“Let me wash your hair,” Hermione commanded warmly, a small blob of shampoo already between her fingers. He bent down and she massaged the blonde mop clean. “Receding my foot,” she said acidly, “your father is mad, you look the same as you did at Hogwarts.”

Draco smiled at her feet, sad but strangely aglow under her ministrations. 

Hermione was too clever not to have already thought of the fact they didn’t have a reason to be showering together, acting like lovers, “practicing” anymore. If she had decided not to bring it up, he certainly wouldn’t. Only Neville would dare call them out, and he had no plans to allow that disapproving killjoy to ruin the nameless who-knew-what Draco was experiencing with his lab partner.

***

Half past eleven found them out in a cold wind on the Salisbury Plain.

Draco watched Hermione, wearing nothing but an undyed linen robe, her arms raised high as she sang to the stars. She’d assured him she couldn’t feel anything but the magic thrumming inside her, the power running out of her through her flickering wand into the garden below. Under the full moon’s light a dozen fragile yellow flowers bloomed from seeds that had been scattered only an hour before.

The river inside of her grew as she chanted incantations, flooding her senses. Draco watched her skin become as luminous as the glowing blossoms, grateful Longbottom had recommended the midnight harvest. She was stunning.

Forbidden words were twining like vines through Draco’s thoughts, heavy and over sweet like ripe fruits he was afraid to pluck.

This glorious witch was his work partner, his temporary roommate, his bedfellow, he thought with a fierce pride, that was enough.

Lover, his head whispered, watching the wind caressing the shape of the body he knew so well, carving a bitterly cold path across skin he’d warmed with his tongue, his fingers. Her hair was wild, curls falling across her face with abandon, her clever mouth alive. Merlin, he wanted to kiss her. They didn’t kiss nearly enough.

He wanted to keep her, he knew that he did, but didn’t know exactly what that would mean or how to bring it up. 

Sticking his hands deep in the pockets of his black wool greatcoat, Draco fiddled with his wand. Hermione’s spell was almost finished. He’d packed her a picnic basket of mulled wine and gingersnaps, a magically warmed blanket to wrap in, and then at the stroke of midnight they’d gather the flower petals. He buried his chin in the scarf she’d knit him, thinking.

“Draco,” Hermione’s voice called.

He lifted his head. Her voice sounded strange, almost hollow as she approached on soft bare feet.

“Granger?” he said cautiously.

She was shining, her fingers alight as she reached for his face.

“I want you,” she said, her expression serious.

“Of course,” he said readily, spreading his leather-gloved hands across her back, trying to rub some warmth back into her. “As soon as we get back, I’m going to have that robe off so fa-“

Hermione pulled off the gown, radiating power as she stood naked on the dark plain.

“Now.”

“I-, what? Here?” Draco stuttered, running his hand through his hair.

Her slow smile undid him. Draco was on her in a step, his mouth on hers. 

The wool of his coat, the wool of the brim of his hat, the wool of his trousers, they all created friction against her wind-smoothed skin while they kissed. He didn’t feel a trace of goose-flesh as he brought her in against him, his thigh between hers.

She undid the buttons of his coat and cardigan, pulling his tshirt out of his trousers. Hermione knew the euphoria of the spell casting was still upon her, but the lust it had awakened was her own, fueled without her usual inhibitions.

“Get down on the ground, Malfoy,” she demanded, shoving him away. Off balance, Draco tumbled onto his bottom, unable to take his eyes off her. Hermione was all soft round curves and long unbound swirls, ripe and full, an ancient goddess in the moonlight with a crackle of magical power at her fingertips. She drank in his awed stare, caressing her own breasts while she evaluated her partner.

He’d cut a distractingly handsome, sinister figure in the shadows while she’d tried to concentrate on bewitching the flower seeds, a noir film villain who had committed atrocities they never discussed.

Mine, she thought, standing over him, her feet straddling his hips. He gripped her thighs hard enough to bruise and pulled her down on top of him.

“Alright, witch,” he said hoarsely, thumbing her nipple with his gloves, “have it your way then.” She had his belt unbuckled and his trousers open in a moment more, finding what she wanted already rigid and weeping inside.

Hermione forced Draco quiet with her mouth as he felt her burning pussy slip around him. She was ruthless in seeking her own pleasure, stuffed full and rocking in a manner that threatened his sanity. Her first crushing orgasm made her more aggressive, and Draco could only whisper obscenities while he tried to hold on. His field of vision was breasts and curls and stars and sometimes the curve of her neck before she sank her teeth into his shoulder.

When she fell on his chest and nearly crushed his hips between her thighs with the power of her second orgasm, he was ready. Draco flipped Hermione over in her moment of distraction, and settling between her come-soaked legs, began to thrust roughly into his feral lover. She scratched at the exposed skin of his arse, urging him harder, so he pinned her hands up by her head with one of his, the other finding a place between them. 

The cold ground beneath her was prickly with dry grass but she either didn’t notice or care while he took his last few transcendent strokes. She tensed under him, her face in a silent scream as he demanded with his clever fingers she come again. 

Draco kept his eyes open to watch Hermione while he gripped her hip, slammed in a last time to fill her, semen and sweat, possession and affection.

Mine forever, his heart pounded furiously.

Hermione found his face, and kissed him, soothing the violent trembling of his muscles with softer touches.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, catching his breath when the come slowed.

“Was that too much?” she asked, guiding him down to rest on top of her. “I got a bit carried away with the spell energy.”

“Granger, you can do that to me every damn day,” he rasped into her breast.

“I don’t think your heart could take that every day,” she teased.

“This would have killed Weasley, you know.”

“Once I can stand we should get picking.”

“Mm-hm,” he said, thinking it must be about midnight now.

“Draco, did you put this ring on me?” Hermione asked, perplexed. She had her hand extended against the stars, and he saw a glint of silver on her ring finger.

“No,” he said, confused, “but you didn’t have it on earlier, I checked you over before you began casting.”

“A ring doesn’t just materialize out of the ether during sex.”

She fished his mobile out of his coat pocket, and turned on the flashlight app. In the harsh modern light the ring was otherworldly, a ring of tiny pearls around a large oval emerald. 

And familiar.

“Granger, how is that ring on your finger right now?”

“I don’t know,” she said curtly, “you tell me, Malfoy!” 

“I swear to God I don’t know how it got here, but I can tell you what it is.”

Of course he could. He’d seen it on his mother’s hand his entire life.

***

“Ouch!” Narcissa cried, dropping her book into her lap.

“What’s that, love,” Lucius murmured sleepily, turning to his wife in the light of her reading lamp.

“My hand, it burned for a moment, oh- and my ring, it’s vanished! How strange.”

“Which ring? You dropped it? Is it in the sheets?”

“My wedding ring, and I didn’t drop it, it disappeared from my finger.”

“Oh,” Lucius dismissed, already half-asleep again. “It does that. Draco must have picked himself a bride. It’s hers now, nothing to worry about, darling. My mother was already gone when you and I met, but it’s something of a tradition and all that.”

“Lucius,” Narcissed hissed, smacking him with a decorative silk pillow. “What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?”

He sat bolt upright, taking her last swing right in the face.

“Draco’s chosen a bride.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know who might know something?” Hermione said reluctantly.  
> “No,” Draco said flatly.  
> “He’s good with these sorts of things.”  
> “No.”  
> “He’s my best friend.”  
> “What if we just got married instead,” he said wildly, putting his forehead down on the table.

“Take me through this again,” Hermione said slowly, “and leave absolutely nothing out.” 

She wore her underpants, socks, and one of his cardigans, all she’d managed to put together in her distracted state. They’d hastily gathered up the flower petals at midnight in silence, apparating straight home where he’d pushed her into a quick shower to warm up. He’d taken the moment to think, but his mind was a panicked blank.

The ring shone bright under the LEDs, contrasted against the strained knuckles that gripped the neck of the half empty bottle of wine. It looked more like a harmless piece of jewelry in the ordinary setting of the apartment.

Draco paced the kitchen, his hands rubbing at his cheeks. Every now and then he’d stop and look at her, a lioness in a kitchen chair, blanche, and go back to pacing.

“If it appears on the finger of the next Malfoy bride, what triggered it, Malfoy,” she ground out. “What did we do or say, what magic did we perform to trigger this?”

Draco set his jaw, and held out his hand.

“Give me your wand first.” 

It was a futile request, one she didn’t acknowledge.

“So you’re saying it was your fault?” Hermione said acidly, intuiting correctly with narrowed eyes. “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t so much what I did,” he said with a wince, “as what I thought. I think. In my defense, I had no idea that would happen. Please don’t murder me over something I thought during sex.”

Hermione tapped her wand on the table, agitated sparks bursting out the end. He followed its path, unsure if he had even the opportunity to block a curse if it would best for the long run if he let it hit him. 

“So what did you think?”

“Something along the lines that I wanted you to be mine...”

“That was your exact thought?” she asked skeptically, taking a drink. He could smell the mulled wine, warm from his charm, across the room, blending with the floral perfume of her soap.

“Almost.”

“The exact thought, Malfoy. Words matter, even inside your head.”

“Mine… forever.”

“So the ring thinks you’ve claimed me, and I have no choice over the matter?” Her voice was rising, the coiled tension in her reminding him how terrifying she had been even as a teenager.

“I’m so sorry, but we’ll figure this out, Hermione. This is a problem that we’re going to solve.”

“Of course we’ll solve it,” she snapped, but she was calming at his re-framing of the situation. “There must be parameters the ring understands, it wouldn’t try to do this to someone already married, for example.”

“Maybe not, I mean I feel like if it did have parameters, blood purity would be first priority in a Malfoy bride.”

He stopped his pacing, and stood in front of her.

“I will do whatever it takes to free you from this, you’ve got to believe me,” Draco said, crouching down so their faces were level. “I would never force you into the world I grew up in, marriages formed for power, children born in obligation and fear. How are you doing?”

“Honestly,” Hermione said, taking a swig from the bottle. “Honestly I’m angry, scared, tired. Touched that you felt that way, even if it was just a random thought you had during sex.”

“It wasn’t that random,” he said softly. “I’ll follow your lead, respect whatever you want to do, but if it were up to me, I’d like to stay together, or start being together, however you want to look at it. I don’t want you and me to be over. I’m sorry the consequences of that want are so dramatic.”

He watched Hermione’s eyes grow large, no attempt at a poker face. She touched his cheek, and he nuzzled into her hand.

“If you’re telling me you honestly didn’t know this would happen, I believe you,” she whispered. “But I’m still mad at the situation.”

Hermione spread her knees and guided him in for a shaky hug.

“I want you to stay,” she said. “Stay with me, Draco. We’ll be mad together.”

An owl tapped at Hermione’s window, making them jump. Draco lost his balance and sat down hard on the floor while Hermione flew to the window and threw up the sash.

“That’s my father’s owl,” Draco announced, pulling himself up. Hermione took the letter and the bird retreated into the night. “Go ahead and open it.”

Hermione broke the Malfoy seal with her index finger, unfurling the scroll. She held it up

“Literally just says ‘Explain yourself.”

“It does not,” he gasped, crossing the floor to pull the missive out of her hands. “It does.”

“The owl just found you, right, they don’t actually know where you are? They don’t know anything about me?”

“Nothing,” he assured, shaking his head at the parchment and dropping it on the table.

“What does he expect you to do with that?”

“Probably report to him immediately,” Draco huffed, sliding into Hermione’s kitchen chair and taking a drink from the bottle. He chased it down with two gingersnaps, crumbs falling onto the letter. “Obviously I’m not going.”

“You’ll have to talk to him eventually,” Hermione pointed out, wrapping the cardigan around herself tighter against the draft the window had let in.

“Why,” he asked sullenly, mouth full. He performed a warming charm in his head, hoping it would delay Hermione realizing she should just go get dressed.

She frowned at him.

“He’ll have the most information on the ring.”

He made a disgruntled noise, his face scrunching up in displeasure like a child’s. 

“And there might be something in your family’s library.”

He brightened with interest, eye brows raising.

“We’ll make a list,” he said, conjuring a lined notebook and pen.

“I’ll go to the ministry library tomorrow, see what I can find on rings like these.”

“I’ll sneak into my parents’ London townhouse tomorrow, they’re still in Paris.”

“Wear a tie,” Hermione said, leaning over his shoulder to scrawl a list of possible books on the page beside his list.

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to expect you to do that and will definitely be waiting to pounce.”

“Ugh, they will,” he agreed, sitting back in the chair to stare at the ceiling.

“Do you know any other pure blood matriarchs you could ask about rings like these? Any of your old Slytherin friends?”

“None that I’d trust,” he admitted.

“You know who might know something?” Hermione said reluctantly.

“No,” Draco said flatly.

“He’s good with these sorts of things.”

“No.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“What if we just got married instead,” he said wildly, putting his forehead down on the table.

“We’ve only been dating for five minutes, I’m not marrying you just because you don’t want Harry’s help getting a ring off my finger,” she said haughtily.

He turned his head, his cheek pressed to the wood. His field of vision was her balled fist on her hip, the ring glinting menacingly at him.

“Compromise,” he said, raising a finger. “We go to Potter if and only if we’ve exhausted our other options. I’m sure you’re not keen on explaining this to The Boy Who Lived To Hate Me.”

“Harry won’t mind that much,” she said confidently.

“You’re lying,” he muttered.

“What?”

He didn’t answer, instead he turned over what he just said again in his mind. He didn’t know how, but he knew her words had been a lie. Draco sat up and looked at her pink face, his eyes sharp.

“Say that again.”

“Harry won’t mind that much?”

Again, he knew it was a lie.

“Tell me two truths and a lie,” he demanded, closing his eyes. “Please, humour me for a moment.”

“I love my cat, I love flying, and I love books.”

“Something harder,” he said, a tiny smile twitching across his mouth. “Tell me the first time you thought I had a nice arse.”

“In bed in Reading,” she said slowly.

“Nope,” he said, mouth sliding back into a frown. “That wasn’t it.”

“At the restaurant, the first night we met back up.”

“No, not then either,” he shook his head. 

“What are you getting at, Draco, what’s this about?”

“Humour me.”

“Potions class, fifth year,” she sighed.

Somehow he knew it was true.

“And when did you first admire my backside,” she asked, taking the bottle back from him.

“Yule Ball,” he lied, experimenting. It had actually been third year, the year she’d first had those muggle jeans he’d hated himself for loving on her. He casually put the notebook over her wand on the table.

“It was a pretty fantastic dress.”

“Did that sound like it was true?”

“I don’t know, you tell me, it was your eyes on my butt.”

“So you’re going to hate this,” he started, tightening his grip on her wand under the coil-bound, “but I think the ring has other powers.”

XXX

It was the usual delivery guy through the peephole, so Draco had no qualms about opening the door looking unsightly. Unshaven, in his threadbare t-shirt, stained jeans, bare feet, and unbrushed hair, it was nothing the guy from the sandwich shop hadn’t seen before.

“Sink again?” the man in the orange safety vest asked cheerfully, unpacking the paper bags from his carrier.

“Third time this month,” Draco sighed, setting the sink plunger down to grab his debit card out of his wallet. 

“Lady of the house still convinced you can rinse down coffee grinds?” he said, after a hasty peer around to make sure Hermione wasn’t in ear shot.

“It’s her one fault,” Draco said with a rueful smile, making the boop sound in his head as he tapped his card on the pos screen.

“Oh,” he heard a man’s startled voice say from a little down the hall, “maybe we’ve got the wrong flat number.”

“No,” a woman said patiently, “I’ve been here before, it’s definitely this one.”

“Sorry, folks, got a bit of a traffic jam here,” the delivery man said, chipper as he handed over the receipt. “See you next time, Drake, my best to the missus!”

There was a shuffling commotion and then, breakfast dangling in his hand, Draco got a good look at his visitors.

It was the red hair that stopped his heart. 

The blank expressions on Arthur and Molly Weasley’s faces were nothing compared to the klaxon sounding in Draco’s head. His wand was sticking out of a coffee mug beside the sink on the other side of the apartment, grimy from prodding the mess. Mrs Weasley’s fingers seemed to be sneaking towards her crocheted handbag.

“Where is Hermione, Mr Malfoy,” Mr Malfoy said, his expression tense. “What have you done with her.”

“She’s perfectly fine. She’s been called into work for an urgent staff meeting.” 

He tried to keep his voice calm, his demeanor non-threatening, but Mrs Weasley pushed past him.

“Hermione?” she called into the flat.

These people were important to Hermione, he reminded himself, good behaviour was critical. 

It wouldn’t do to forget these people were also more dangerous than they looked.

“I think the most obvious question is what are you doing here?” Mrs Weasley demanded evenly, surveying the scene, “especially when it’s occupant isn’t.”

Draco followed her in, his hands where she could see them. He didn’t like turning his back on Mr Weasley, but between the two of them, it wasn’t Arthur who had taken down his mad aunt at the height of her powers.

“Hermione and I are working on an interdisciplinary research project together.”

“So you’re saying you’re in her home at this moment, without her, on a Saturday morning, because of… some sort of work you’re doing, dressed like… that.”

“At this moment specifically I’m trying to unclog the sink,” he deflected, gesturing to the plunger. “Her sink. As… a favour.”

“Are you not a wizard,” Arthur asked, brow furrowing in disbelief at the mess in the kitchen. “How hard is it to unclog a sink?”

“Difficult when you’ve never learned domestic magic or muggle maintenance,” Draco admitted in defeat.

“Let me take a look,” Arthur sighed, hanging up his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. Draco followed him to the kitchen while Mrs Weasley disappeared into the bathroom. The older man followed his wife’s progress with his eyes, waiting until the door was shut.

“How long have you two lived together?” he asked quietly.

Draco looked up sharply. The well-practiced father raised an eyebrow.

“Because if I’ve figured it out, Molly will, and you’ve got less than five minutes to come up with a plan before she hexes you.”

The younger man blew out a long breath.

“You’re not going to ask why?”

“I imagine the why is the simplest part,” the older man said with a hint of wryness Draco hadn’t expected. “But I wouldn’t mention that in front of my wife. ”

“We are actually working on a project together.” Draco’s ears turned pink.

“Alright, go with that, then.”

“You’re not going to hex me?”

Arthur frowned at the sink, tapping it once with his wand. It made a sinister gurgling sound, but smelled suddenly of lemon.

“Not today. I trust Hermione.”

“That’s… more generous than I expected,” Draco admitted, turning on the hot water faucet and letting it run.

“I don’t expect you’ll be afforded much generosity from our community. You’ve been living as a muggle?”

Draco nodded, washing his hands.

“I don’t plan to live full time in the magical world, I’ve got a muggle job to go back to after this.”

“This is going to sound like an impertinent questions, but your parents-”

“Out of the country, and they don’t know anything about Hermione and me.”

“Nothing? You’ve checked for tracking curses, surveillance spells, dark objects-”

“Wait, I could use your help,” Draco said suddenly, dropping his voice lower. “There is something.”

Arthur crossed his arms, waiting with an intense focus.

“Obviously Hermione’s safety is my first priority,” Draco started.

He tried and failed several times to put the situation into the right words.

The door knob rattled to the bathroom, time was running out.

It occurred to him that maybe there was a pure blood matriarch he could trust. Sort of. If she didn’t murder him first.

“There are two toothbrushes,” Mrs Weasley hissed from the loo, her voice pitching up like a tea kettle.

“Hold on, Molly, Mr Malfoy is about to tell me about Hermione’s safety,” Mr Weasley said in a serious voice that stopped her in her tracks. Wary, she joined her husband’s side, wand in hand.

“I have done everything in my power to prevent my parents from knowing Hermione are even in contact, let alone… close.”

“But,” Mrs Weasley prompted fiercely, not exactly pointing her wand at Draco, but it wasn’t pointed away from him.

“But,” Draco said, raising his hands again, “we’ve run into a problem.”

They all jumped as Hermione appeared on the door mat with a pop, shaking rain out of her hair while she removed her boots.

“Smells good in here, were you able to clear the si-” she cut off, the stand off in the kitchen somewhat self-explanatory. “Oh,” she said softly.

“We have guests,” he said simply.

After a tense few minutes, Hermione got her friends settled at the table while Draco made tea. He could feel Mrs Weasley’s eyes on his back, and wished he had a long-sleeved shirt on to cover the Dark Mark she had to have seen.

“So how serious is this,” Mrs Weasley asked bluntly. “Have you been together long?”

“Well, long enough to live together, Molly, so it must be some time,” Mr Weasley said when Hermione hesitated to answer. Hermione turned around suddenly to face Draco.

“Do you even still have your own flat?”

Draco nodded, spooning the tea leaves into the metal basket.

“In Bath, yeah, but there isn’t much there. Odds and ends.”

“But why him,” Molly finally burst.

“Because I like him,” Hermione shrugged. “Because he makes me happy.” Draco preened on the inside, the tension forgotten for a moment in a warm pleasant glow.

“So what’s gone wrong, Mr Malfoy,” Arthur said, bringing the conversation back around. “What is it you think I can help with?”

The warm glow cooled. Draco poured in boiling water from the electric kettle, and set the lid on the teapot. Carrying the tray to the table, he settled in beside Hermione. He took her hand in his, and gently tugged off her glove finger by finger.

“This,” he said, turning her hand so the emerald caught the morning sun, “appeared the moment I considered the idea of marrying Hermione, and now we can’t get it off.”

“Considered the idea of marrying her,” Molly repeated skeptically. “Considered the idea? You think a pure blood magical object is going to claim a new owner based on a whim?”

“You must have been considering it with a mighty conviction, Mr Malfoy,” Arthur said with a frown, Hermione allowing him to shift the ring around her finger and examine it. “Is this your mother’s?”

Draco nodded, squeezing Hermione’s other hand under the table, stroking her wrist with his thumb.

“I don’t know how to remove it,” Arthur conceded, “but your father probably does.”

“Do you have any general information,” Hermione asked, desperate for anything.

He passed Hermione’s hand over to Mrs Weasley, who tapped the ring with her wand.

“Most of these sorts of things are meant to bind pure blood wives with all manner of patriarchal nonsense,” she mused. “None of those marriages were based on love or trust.”

“I can tell when Hermione is lying now,” Draco admitted uncomfortably.

“There’s probably more,” Mrs Weasley warned. “Women were absolutely ruled by their husbands in some of these families, even if they were powerful witches in their own right.”

“You must know I have no intention of allowing Hermione to be controlled by myself, this ring, or my family,” he said, his distress plain on his face.

“It may not be up to you,” Molly said gently. “Your desire to be with Hermione was enough to bind this ring to her hand. How you feel about things, deeply feel about things, could have influence.”

“So if I could say, really and truly not want to be with her? That might be enough?”

“Maybe,” Arthur said, “but could you mean it?”

Draco met Hermione’s rich brown eyes, and flushed, looking away.

“No,” he said quietly. “There will have to be another way.”

“Listen, I hate Lucius Malfoy as much as the next man-”

“Probably more,” Molly pointed out.

“Probably more than the next man,” Arthur corrected, “but he may now be your only avenue for more information unless…”

“Unless?” Hermione prompted. Arthur and Draco exchanged significant looks. 

“It’s one or the other, son, because you need to get this ring off Hermione’s finger before there are consequences you can’t undo.”

“One or the other of what,” Hermione said, getting annoyed.

“My father or Potter,” Draco said flatly.

XXX

That night they sat on the couch side by side, not reading their books. 

Hermione kept stealing glances at the sci-fi he had open to page sixty-eight, his focus inward. When the half hour mark had passed and he was still on page sixty-eight, she put down her deep dive into the finer points of the use of magical spores in restorative draughts.

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” she said, plucking the book out of his hand and setting them both on the coffee table. His hands hung in the air, like they hadn’t realized that they’d been supporting something to begin with. She shifted to lean against the armrest, her long hair spilling over the side, and faced him. The cat jumped into her lap. It was dark in the little flat, they’d forgotten to put on the lights when the sun set, switching on only the table side lamps. It was just enough light to see her partner’s troubled expression. “Let’s put the ring on the back-burner and re-focus on the Longbottoms.”

“Hermione,” Draco started slowly, “you promised Neville you’d make no sacrifices for this project. I don’t feel comfortable leaving this.”

“But the thought of going to your father or Harry is eating you alive, and I don’t want that.”

She paused, knowing he couldn’t contradict her. As much as he hated it, she was counting on him knowing that she wasn’t lying.

“I also don’t want any of our preparations to spoil for the potions. We’ve worked too hard on this to wait and potentially have things lose efficacy or produce results we hadn’t calculated. This magic is too complex for surprise variables like delays.”

Draco nodded along like he understood, but wasn’t agreeing.

“I am okay leaving the ring on my finger until our project is over,” Hermione said firmly. “I want to make the project our only priority right now.”

“What if I’m not?” Draco asked seriously, raking his hand through his hair.

“As far as we know, all of the consequences have fallen on me. I’m not saying you’re not permitted to object or have an opinion on this, but I want you to know that as the person who has the most to lose, I’m willing to risk it. We have work to do.”

“And what if those consequences are permanent?” he asked, finally voicing the concerns he’s been stewing over. “What if the longer we leave it the stronger it gets? What if long after you’re done with me, you’re still bound to me? We don’t know all of the ring’s powers.”

Hermione’s voice was gentle, reaching over to touch his cheek, trying to catch his eye.

“That’s what you’re most worried about? If I want to break up with you? Draco, that’s not in the plan.”

“It must happen eventually,” he said, looking defeated. “This is going to end up being just one more thing on the list of reasons why Hermione Granger dating Draco Malfoy had been a bad idea, the one slip in her notoriously good judgment.”

She felt like she’d been hit by a stunning spell, not feeling the cat’s claws as it slithered out of her grip to drip to the floor.

“I think I’ve handled this situation all wrong,” Hermione said carefully. He would know if any of what she needed to say rang false. “It may not have been the timing or the circumstances we had imagined, but Draco, we’re not teenagers to fall in and out of a relationship. I’m happy to be with you. I want to stay with you, forever if that’s still something that interests you.”

“Jesus, Granger,” Draco breathed, pale.

“Okay,” she raised a finger, curiosity flaring, “quick question, I know you’ve been living as a muggle, but do you know who that is or is it just a swear word you picked u-”

At this point, however, Draco had already pounced, his mouth consuming the end of her question. He kissed her until she was lightheaded, his fingers unbuttoning shirt buttons at a tenth of his usual speed. When Hermione reached for him to help, he captured her hand and moved it away.

“No rush,” he murmured into her throat, taking his time to caress each new patch of skin, to kiss every part of her face, her collar, her neck from where he hovered over her. His face, his shoulder, the fall of blonde hair were all she could see, with the occasional glimpse of eyes that burned like the coldest winter sunlight. Once he’d bared her breasts, he gave them same achingly slow, scorching treatment, a hand pressing on her lower back to support her while she arched into his mouth. He let her tug at his shirt, her fingers dragging up his sides to bare the smooth skin, finally relenting and removing it. It fell onto the floor beside the couch, and was joined item by item until an age later Draco sank naked between Hermione’s thighs. He rocked against the soft hair of her pelvis.

“Not complaining,” she said between unhurried kisses, “but we’d normally be long finished by now. Why the glacial pace?”

He chuckled into the hollow under her jaw, palm running under her knee.

“I’m working up my courage,” he said, his voice thick with lust.

“Oh?” Hermione prompted, feeling him press at her entrance. He’d normally have taken more time with his fingers or his mouth to make sure she was ready, but he had to feel how wet she was against him, how unnecessary additional preparation would be tonight. He dipped his body against hers, chest to chest, belly to belly, and slipped just the head of his cock in.

“To ask if you love me.”

Precariously close to overwhelmed, Hermione’s eyes flashed open.

“Because I love you,” he continued, inching into her with his eyes closed, his head hung over her breasts in concentration. “And you can’t lie to me.”

Draco reached down and swirled his fingertips through the mess she’s made, and then over her clitoris, dancing over it until Hermione felt like she was going to burst. He pulled out as she came with crushing force, erect against her hip as he waited for her to catch her breath.

“Good girl,” he whispered, smoothing back her hair, “that’s one, but we can do better.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Hermione said, scraping her fingernails lightly across his skin as tremors shot through her muscles.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, wrapping his hands around her hips and tipping her up to slide back onto him. He pressed her hard into the sofa cushions, driving in deeply at the same agonizing pace. Draco draped over Hermione like a blanket, like he needed to touch every part of her, occupying the space between her legs like it was his own body. He dragged out and then in again, firm, deep strokes that left Hermione sinking her teeth into his shoulder. If she survived it, it promised to be a shattering orgasm.

“Draco,” she said, her voice barely there. “Ask me, I’ll tell you.”

He moved over her like a man possessed, relentless, sweat forming in the valley of his back.

“I love you,” she moaned. He pulled back enough for his mouth to find hers again, catching her knee and holding it almost to her shoulder. He drove in faster, the grind of his body right where she needed it. Hermione grasped at whatever she could, feeling like she was drowning, finding the back of the couch with one hand, the finders on the other burying into his hair. He smothered her shriek with his kiss, his arm braced behind her head, his hand holding her hips tight to his like he meant to seal them together. Hermione felt him finish hard inside of her, the pulse of his spend, the rigidity of his body against hers. He broke off the kiss to pant.

“You love me,” he repeated, face scarlet with exertion.

“I love you,” Hermione confirmed. Nerves afire with sensation, she felt like she could get lost in this, get lost in him, and it felt good.

They barely cleaned up, merely making it to the loo and then straight to bed. Draco collapsed onto her chest naked, helping tug the flannel sheets over his bare back.

“Feels like spring,” Hermione murmured sleepily. Her thoughts were full of rich and heavy fruit blossoms, the scent of new grass, a warm breeze against her skin that may have just been Draco’s breath. Everything felt fresh, light, and she drifted into an easy sleep.

“I’m happy,” Draco responded, smiling against a breast, still reveling in the knowledge of her love. “You’re my family now. No obligation, no fear, just us.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Say hello on Twitter! @angharabbit


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